


Connor's Kiddie Shoes

by AClever_Username



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Not Beta Read, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Tying laces is hard people, just protect my soft android boi at all costs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 10:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AClever_Username/pseuds/AClever_Username
Summary: Connor finds out he can't tie his laces. Hank teaches him.





	Connor's Kiddie Shoes

**Author's Note:**

> I looked at the little strap-y things on Connor's shoes and decided they were Velcro.

“Y’know Connor, I gotta ask,”

Connor looked up from where he was interfacing with the terminal at his desk, tilting his head at Hank in question.

“The shoes.”

He glanced down at them, flexing his feet for no reason he could see.

“They are…shoes, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah, but - someone at Cyberlife decide standard shoes were too boring or something? What are the, Christ I don’t know what you call ‘em, ‘straps’ I suppose – the hell they for?”

Connor blinked at them, then up at Hank. “They keep the shoes on.”

Hank didn’t reply, just raised eyebrow, so Connor leaned down and undid both panels with a familiar rip. “See? Th-”

“Wait wait,” Hank interrupted, his lips twitching into a smile, trying to contain his laughter as realisation dawned. “Was that – are they _Velcro?"_

Connor slipped his entire shoe off, and held it in the palm of his hand, the Velcro flaps at either side hanging open but curling in on themselves. “Yes.”

Hank started laughing. The more confused Connor looked the harder he laughed, occasionally scrubbing at his face.

“This whole time,” he eventually got out, “this whole time you’ve been running around in _Velcro kiddie shoes?”_

“They are not-”

“What,” Hank continued, “no-one ever teach you how to tie a lace?”

“I don’t understand what is funny Lieutenant.”

“Your shoes are fucking ridiculous, and made for a three-year-old, that’s what’s damn funny!”

Connor frowned harder. “They’re efficient.”

Hank waved him off, and swivelled back to his desk, still lightly chuckling.

Connor sullenly replaced his shoe.

 

* * *

 

Hank kept insisting that Connor get some new clothes. They’d already added an additional three shirts, a pair of jeans, and some sweatpants to his wardrobe – plus a hoodie, as Hank refused to let him ‘chill’ on the couch without one.

So Connor had been dragged to the mall, more specifically dragged to a shoe store, as since the discussion about his footwear at work Hank had not let it go.

“There is nothing wrong with my shoes Hank, they are efficient, unobtrusive, and flexible,”

“Jesus you even market ‘em like Cyberlife. Doesn’t make them any less ugly or stupid - Y’know what also fits that description? Crocs. And Crocs are fucking awful and should go die in a hole,”

Connor frowned. “Hank you own – and I’ve seen you wear – at least three different pairs,”

“I said what I said,” Hank maintained, and succeeded in pulling Connor into the shop, standing them amongst shelves and shelves of shoes.

“Alright. Project Adult Shoes is a go,”

“Please stop calling it that,”

Hank ignored him. “Y’know your shoe size?”

“Of course, it’s standardised for my model,”

Hank raised his eyebrow in expectation.

Connor rolled his eyes. “Thirteen,”

“Alright,” Hank spread his arms out to the store, “go ahead. Pick some normal shoes,”

Connor spent a few minutes looking around, then purposefully found the closest pair of shoes to the one’s he owned as he could find. He walked back to Hank with them in hand.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Hank grumbled. Connor smirked. “’The Hell you find those?”

“In the adult section,”

“In the senior section. They’re old man shoes Connor,”

“Then you should love them.”

Hank just looked at him. Connor carefully kept his face blank.

After a second Hank sighed and snatched the shoes from Connor. “How are you both an idiot and a smartass?”

“I was designed to fit in with the humans around me,”

Connor only narrowly avoided being swatted with the shoe. “Oi! Remember who you live with kid – aim it at Reed, not me,”

“Sorry,”

Hank huffed around a smile. “Yeah, yeah. Now since you’re incompetent, I’ll get you some myself. You,” he pointed at Connor with the shoe, “Stay here. Don’t lick anything.”

Crossing his arms, he watched Hank wander off, then looked around. It was relatively busy, the shoe fitting section crammed with children and their parents; kids sitting on little foam blocks and swinging their socked feet in the sir, turning their nose up at sensible pairs with buckles and clamouring for the range that held a small doll in the heel.

A mother ushered her boy to sit on the block nearest to Connor, letting the assistant go through the stages of measuring his feet. He watched idly until Hank returned, holding an armful of miscellaneous shoes.

“Here,” he said, thrusting them at Connor, “try some of these,”

“Hank I don’t need new shoes,”

“Trust me, you do. Now try them.”

“There’s no need,”

“How’ll you know if they fit?”

“They will. My feet are the exact measurements of an American men’s size thirteen,”

Hank blinked, disgruntled. “Fine. You’ve still gotta pick a pair though.”

Connor looked down at them. They were all fairly similar - standard black lace ups, Hank had clearly picked out shoes Connor might actually wear. He still didn’t see the need for another pair, but he scanned online for reviews of durability regardless.

Beside them the assistant brought back a pile of shoe boxes and spread them out before the child, flipping the lids off one by one and delving into the first box with a great rustling of tissue paper.

“How about these?” she asked, but before the kid could answer his mother jumped in.

“Oh no sorry, I should have specified,” she said, with a fake laugh that had Hank exchange an exasperated look with Connor, “he can’t have shoes with laces I’m afraid – try as I might to teach him, he just hasn’t got the hang of them yet y’know?”

Clearly aware of her small audience she gave half-shrug to Connor and Hank, then turned back to the shop assistant. “Do you have anything with Velcro?”

Hank didn’t say a word, but Connor glared at his smugly amused smile, plucking a pair from the pile in his arms and walking off towards the pay desk, trailed by Hank’s chuckling.

 

* * *

 

Sitting back in his chair Connor cast his eyes around the office, rolling his coin absentmindedly across his knuckles, spinning it on the tips of his fingers as his LED cycled yellow. Occasionally he had to lean even further back to peer around a desk, or forward to scrutinise the people shuffling in the break room.

Laces. To his count everyone except three people were sporting laced shoes, and the three exceptions had been types of pull-on boots, without any fastenings at all. Some of the laces had been meticulously knotted, or double knotted (Connor had a separate tally running for that), other laces were trailing on the floor, the aglets missing so their edges were frayed. He could tell that some had clearly tied them the once when they’d first bought them and left them like that ever since, struggling to push their foot in and out around the knot, ruining the backs, despite there being an easy solution of just undoing the lace. He’d seen Detective Reed struggle for far longer than it would have taken to just lace them properly.

Connor could not say he fully understood humans.

“The Hell you doing?”

Connor whipped his head around to see Hank looking at him strangely over his terminal.

“Sorry Lieutenant. I was just...” he trailed off.

“You were just…” Hank repeated.

“Conducting some research,” he settled on.

“Right.” Hank looked like he didn’t believe him, so Connor looked straight back.

Eventually Hank shook his head. “Whatever, you weirdo. Now start looking busy before Jeffery gives us something to do.”

“Got it,” he replied, with one last look at Officer Miller, who had stopped, foot propped up on a chair, to re-tie his shoes.

 

* * *

 

Hank was out on the grocery run Connor had told him to go on for days, prompted by the lack of anything even remotely edible in the fridge. Connor had stayed behind. He’d said it was punishment for not listening to his warnings, but really he had something else in mind.

Connor liked his shoes. He really, truly did. He couldn’t exactly say they were ‘comfortable’, or that as an android he even needed them, but they did what they were supposed to perfectly fine. Plus, he sort of felt a bit protective over them, ever since Hank’s teasing.

Deviancy was weird.

Thus, Connor felt slightly guilty as he retrieved the pair of lace-ups they’d got from the store, and sat down with them on the couch, even if it made no sense to. A second pair of shoes would, admittedly, be useful if he somehow damaged his other pair.

He slipped them on. Left one first, as he had always done, then tugged on either end of the lace to pull it taught.

Then he was stuck.

It occurred to Connor, in that moment, one shoe on and Sumo sniffing around the other, that he’d never tied his laces before. Or any knot for that matter. It just...hadn’t come up.

Clearly it hadn’t been programmed into him either, otherwise he would have automatically completed the task, and he spent a moment slightly annoyed at his programmers for leaving out something so basic before he remembered that they had had to put him together rather quickly, and had been focused mainly on detective knowledge. And that was useful, to be fair.

Connor frowned down at the waiting laces for a second, then searched up instructions for tying them. There seemed to be two main methods, and quite a lot of strong opinions on the ‘correct’ way to do it. He went with the apparently more popular ‘wrap around' method.

Quickly he read the steps, glancing at the accompanying diagrams, and launched straight into it. The first two twists were simple. Creating a loop was slightly less so. The lace kept sliding out of his grip, and he’d forget to keep his other hand pulling tight as he automatically reached for it. By the time he’d managed to hold a loop everything had gone loose, and his fingers were held at awkward angles. His LED blinking yellow in concentration, he checked and double-checked he was following the steps correctly. He was, although the diagram looked much neater, so he attempted the final step. Wrap around, and pull on through. The first time the fingers holding the loop got in the way, and as he readjusted the lace became less and less like a loop. He tried again, and wrapped it around successfully. Then all he had to do was just ‘pull on through’ and they’d be tied.

Simple.

A child could do it.

But Connor’s laces remained stubbornly untied. He couldn’t seem to do the last step well _at all._ There appeared to be far too many fingertips in the way of cleanly pulling it through. Then the gap seemed to disappear, and then when he finally managed to fiddle enough to get it in the right place _something_ went wrong, and the entire construction fell to pieces. He was left blinking down at the unravelled laces in his hands, back to step one.

Surely it couldn’t be that…difficult.

Decisively siding with the ‘bunny ears’ method as clearly superior over the ‘wrap and loop’ Connor switched instructions and began again. Loop number one would not be looped any easier, and there was so _much_ of it, falling everywhere so that Connor had to keep trying to flip it back out of his way. The second loop was apparently impossible. Eventually he wrangled two large loops from the laces, crossed them over confidently, and found he had run out of useful fingers to twist them together. The more he sat there, trying to pull one loop under the other, the more he understood Hank’s stream of constant cursing.

After several failed attempts Connor turned in desperation to his pre-construction software, and finally, _finally,_ tied the laces.

Badly. There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of loop, and the knot in the middle was extremely loose. Connor tugged to tighten it and accidentally pulled the end straight through, dismantling one half of his hard-earned bow. He sat back. He had one shoe lump-ily tied to his foot, looking like a strong breeze would unravel what wasn’t already trailing across the floor.

Connor, an RK800 prototype, the most advanced android Cyberlife had ever created and a master of coin dexterity, could not tie his laces.

 

* * *

 

They were following up a lead on their current case, climbing the decrepit staircase to their suspect’s apartment. Connor was staring at the wet footprints Hank made as he followed him up, a trail of twin footsteps dripping from his infallible _, Velcro,_ shoes.

He’d placed the others at the very back of the closet before Hank had arrived back home, frustrated with himself and the uncooperative laces, and resolved to stick to what he’d always worn. Connor had thought, that by hiding them at the back, he had put all thoughts of shoe-tying to the back of his mind too. But apparently not, as Hank had frowned at him all through dinner, and eventually asked what was ‘bugging him.’

“Nothing, Lieutenant,”

“Sureeeee,” Hank had said, leaning back in his chair at the kitchen table, arms crossed over his chest, an eyebrow raised. “You were fine before I went to the store, now you’re pissy as hell,”

“No I’m not.”

“…he says pissily,”

Connor had said nothing more, so Hank had dropped it. And Connor had pressed the Velcro into place the following morning and thought nothing more of shoelaces.

They reached the right floor, and Connor let Hank take a second to complain about broken lifts and compose himself before knocking on the apartment door.

No sooner had he finished his shout of _‘police’_ did they hear loud clattering from inside, and they shared one quick look before busting on through, just in time to see their suspect struggling through the open window and down the fire-escape.

Connor was at once in pursuit, barely registering Hank’s heartfelt grumble of ‘ _more fucking stairs!’_ behind him as he dove over the windowsill. The suspect had reached the bottom and was running off down the alley; Connor leapt over the railing and hit the ground with a roll, springing back to his feet and following the dark streak of hoodie ahead of him. They were fast, but human, and Connor was faster.

He was almost in arm’s reach when the suspect started to climb the chicken-wire fence that closed off the alley, and Connor, just a hand away of pulling him back to the ground, went to move his foot and found that he couldn’t.

Tugging frantically, he risked a quick glance down and saw that his shoe had snagged on some broken chain links; a glance upwards told him the suspect was already rolling over the top.

If Connor stopped to untangle himself, he would get away.

So Connor reached down and tugged the Velcro straps open, pulling his foot free with considerable force, and practically hurdled the fence. Water seeped quickly through his sock, and his right shoe was left, still lodged in the fence.

The man ahead of him took a sharp right out of the alley and back into the street. He would have been lost to the crowd, if Connor hadn’t been there to tackle him to the ground, catching his flailing fists and letting the profanities slide off him like the rain.

Hank caught up eventually - in his hand, a familiar dark lump.

“Lose something?” he asked, brandishing Connor’s missing shoe.

“Lose something?” Connor repeated, tugging lightly on their suspect, eyebrows raised, right foot firmly in a puddle.

Hank just grunted, slapping Connor’s shoe against his chest, so the tiny hooks scratched against the fabric.

 

* * *

 

“Y’know Lieutenant,” Connor began in the passenger seat of Hank’s car, their suspect sulking in the back, “I wouldn’t have caught up to him if my shoes were not so easily removable.”

“Oh for fucks sake,”

“I’m just saying,” Connor said, his mouth tipped up in a smug smile, his tone deceptively light, “that if I’d been wearing anything with more _traditional_ fastenings, then it’s likely our murderer would have disappeared again,”

“Alright! Alright Connor, you win – your stupid kid’s shoes aren’t utterly pointless. You happy now?”

“Well, no. You just called them stupid.”

“They are. Occasionally useful or not, Velcro is still for children.”

Connor opened his mouth.

“That’s your compromise!” Hank interrupted, “take it or leave it.”

Connor closed his mouth. ‘Compromise’ was as good as straight-up defeat from Hank.

Velcro one, Laces zero.

 

* * *

 

Connor pulled the shoes from where he’d shoved them, closing the closet door softly.

He didn’t _need_ to know how to tie his laces. He’d already proved that –  he’d hunted Deviants, joined them, then helped the revolution all in one pair of Cyberlife-issue shoes, secured with great strips of Velcro.

That didn’t stop him from _wanting_ to know. He’d tried, again and again – new instructions, new tutorials, but he wasn’t getting any better. It was infuriating. Connor was getting increasingly frustrated, and out of all his Deviant emotions, that was one of his least favourites.

So, Connor stubbornly maintained that he did not _need_ any new shoes. But he would quite like to know how to tie them.

Connor took the shoes out to the living room, where Hank was sitting on the couch, sipping a beer and watching the TV. Placing them on the floor he sat down at the opposite end, clasping his hands between his knees, and waited.

At first Hank just glanced at him, and continued to watch the TV. When Connor stayed quiet he gave him more sideways glances, watching the yellow swirl of an LED.

“Okay then Connor,” Hank finally said around a sigh, placing his bottle on the floor and sitting up in his seat, “what’s up?”

Connor hesitated for a second. Hank was more than likely going to laugh. He was also going to have to find out at some point, so Connor decided to just come out with it.

“I can’t tie my shoelaces.”

Hank blinked at him. “What?”

“My shoelaces. I can’t tie them.”

As predicted, Hank started laughing. “You’re serious? You – an _android,_ hell _the most advanced android in existence,_ can’t tie your shoes?”

“That’s what I said,” Connor replied curtly, waiting for Hank to stop finding it quite so hilarious.

“I wasn’t being _serious_ before, Oh my God – wait the _Velcro-”_

“Hank!”

Hank looked at Connor’s face; the drawn brows, set jaw, and red LED, and made the visible effort to calm down. “Sorry, sorry kid – you’ve got to admit this is funny,”

“No.”

“Just a bit, come on - how come you can’t anyway? Thought that’d be the kinda thing they’d programme into ya,”

“It seems they overlooked this particular skill,”

“Well can’t you just,” Hank waved his hands about vaguely, “teach yourself or something? There’s got to be loads of tutorials and shit online,”

“I’ve tried,” Connor said quietly, kicking the shoe nearest to him gently with his foot. “I just…can’t seem to do it right.”

Connor continued to stare at the floor. There was a short pause, and even though Connor wasn’t looking at him, he could tell Hank was considering something.

“Oh for Christs sake, come on then you dumb fucking android,” Hank grumbled, and Connor’s head snapped up as he moved from the sofa to the floor in front of Connor, grumbling about being ‘ _too fucking old for this shit’_ the entire time.

“Hank-”

“Don’t wanna hear it. ‘Can’t have you looking so damn miserable over this,”

“But-”

“Connor.” Hank interrupted, “do you want to learn how to tie your shoes or not?”

Connor nodded.

“Well there we go then. I’mma assume you’ve got step one down – put your foot in the fucking shoe,”

Connor huffed but complied, slipping one on, then went ahead and pulled the laces tight, including the first two twists.

“So from here on is the problem then?”

“Yes. I don’t understand, I follow all the instructions correctly!”

“Show me,” Hank said, shifting sideways on the rug and waving Connor on.

With one last dubious look, Connor began the first loop.

“Well you’re doing it awkwardly but not terribly,” Hank encouraged.

As Connor began the second loop Hank all but snatched his hands away.

“Jesus no! ‘Bunny ears’ are banned in this household – you learn the right way or not at all,”

“This is a perfectly valid method!”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Hank huffed, then huffed some more as he shifted to his knees, taking the laces in his hands. “Alright, I’m going to do this slowly, now watch.”

Hank had said ‘slowly’, but it was mere seconds before he’d tied a perfect bow on Connor’s shoes. He watched Connor expectedly as Connor ran back his memory at half speed, frowning all the while.

“But that’s what I tried! Loop, wrap around, pull through,” Connor parroted.

Tugging on an aglet Hank untangled the knot, ready to start again. “You probably did, just weirdly – it takes practice y’know? Gotta learn the tricks of the trade.”

Connor blinked at him, and Hank rolled his eyes. “Alright look. Technically you’ve got the steps, it’s the execution that’s off. You make the loop too big, for a starter, and you can use the fingers on your other hand to help, see?”

Using a finger on his left hand, Hank hooked the length of lace and pulled it down to create a small loop.

“Oh,”

“Yeah, ‘oh’. Put the other one on then, you’re gonna do that one.”

Connor slid the other shoe on, and did exactly as Hank had shown him. It was, admittedly, much easier.

“Yeah, like that. Your hands don’t have to stick to just one loop, I think that’s the other problem. When you wrap it ‘round, use your right fingers to try and pull it through, rather than pushing with your left, got it?”

“Got it,” Connor said, as Hank demonstrated exactly what he meant, and now that it had been pointed out, Connor could see exactly what he was doing differently.

Hank did it again a couple more times, and Connor followed: one small loop, wrap around, pull through with his right fingers, and-

There. Connor lifted his hands away from his perfectly tied laces, neither loop too large, the knot in the middle tight. He kicked his foot a little experimentally, to see whether the shoe would fly off. It didn’t.

“I did it.”

“Yep,” Hank said, sitting back on his heels. “Not that hard right? Now do this one,” he patted the other shoe.

Leaning down, he followed the same steps, and successfully finished tying his first pair of shoes.

Hank shoved himself from the floor just as Connor stood up, rolling forward onto the balls of his feet and back for no reason he could see, and smiled widely.

“Thank you.”

Hank smiled back, rubbing the back of his neck. “No problem son – any chance we could chuck the other shoes now?”

“Absolutely not.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Those shoes with a little toy in the heel existed - Clarke's had it going on as a kid, I had a fuck ton of them).
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this random little..thing. All mistakes are mine etc.


End file.
